(4 October 2005 4:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Leveraging the tremendous growth of compelling user-generated content on the web, the US online video search engine blinkx.tv has now announced the launch of my.blinkx.tv.

The new service offers users the facility to upload and store their video blogs free of charge. Users can also enter a search and save it as a "channel", which will be automatically and perpetually updated with relevant footage.

This personal "channel" can then be viewed as a single, uninterrupted media stream, either online or when downloaded to their desktops or portable video player. In this way, blinkx is empowering Internet users to customize not only what video content they receive, but also how and when they view it, states an official release.

For example, someone can upload personal footage and commentary on Hurricane Katrina to my blinkx.tv. blinkx will then automatically normalize the content, convert it into Flash, create an audio transcript, and index the file. The user's video clip will then become part of a living library, so that another visitor to my blinkx.tv who searched for New Orleans and weather would find that segment on Hurricane Katrina, along with other related user generated content, featured in their own customized channel, the release adds.

"There's been a huge amount of noise about IPTV, but we've yet to see any real progress in this area," said blinkx founder Suranga Chandratillake. "At blinkx, we believe that IPTV should combine the interactive, customizable experience of the Internet, with the simple, seamless way we watch TV -- with my blinkx.tv, we're collaborating with our users to experiment with how we think that might look."